The Last Days of Video by Jeremy Hawkins

The Last Days of Video is like the literary missing link, about a time when things were really real.' -Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and The Kings and Queens of Roam 'The Last Days of Video is, as the title suggests, an elegy for an era, but it's an era that's going out with a lot of kicking and screaming. This book should be put in a time capsule. And the characters are so fresh and sad and eager. This is a wonderful book! I laughed at least once a page.

The Last Days of Video is a hilarious elegy for a bygone era, a quirky and charming story of redemption for a group of loveable cinema freaks, and a love letter to the art of the movies. Together, these three misfits try to save Star Video while confronting, among other things, Waring's self-destructive tendencies, a life training cult, corporate bicycle gangs, and a Hollywood director who constantly sees the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock. So, Waring enlists the help of his two reluctant employees, charismatic but conflicted Alaura and desperate virgin Jeff, to hatch a series of wild schemes to save their little store. But everything changes in his small college town when a bright and shiny Blockbuster Video opens nearby: Clearly, this means war. You've got your Netflix and your DVR, so why deal with VHS tapes or scratched DVDs? Why deal with the grumpy guy at the worn-down independent video store? That grumpy guy is Waring Wax, and he's usually too drunk to worry about his declining business at Star Video, let alone his quickly evolving extinction in popular culture.

The Last Days of Video by Jeremy Hawkins